Sol Arbiter: A Military Scifi Thriller Read online

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  Sol Arbiter Copyright © 2019 by Variant Publications

  Book design and layout copyright © 2019 by JN Chaney

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Sol Arbiter

  Book 1 in the Sol Arbiter Series

  J.N. Chaney

  Jia Shen

  Book Description

  They don't call us annihilators or exterminators. They call us Arbiters. We arbitrate conflict to keep the peace.

  In 2853, humanity has established a presence across the solar system. Linked by a network of FTL gateways called Boson Apertures, travel between the 7 colonized worlds and thousands of space colonies takes only hours.

  The Sol Federation is the final authority, and the Arbiters travel the system to maintain order.

  Arbiters Gabriel Anderson and Tycho Barrett have been sent to intervene in a growing crisis on Venus.

  Tower 7 has gone completely dark, and security androids are killing civilians.

  No one knows what has become of the tower's 520,000 residents or who is responsible for the mysterious assault, but the mission is clear:

  Tycho and Gabriel must breach the tower, investigate the missing civilians, and locate the entity responsible...all while staying alive.

  Witness the beginning of an expansive scifi epic in this first entry to the Sol Arbiter series. If you're a fan of Altered Carbon, Dredd, or Blade Runner, you'll love this cyberpunk thrill ride.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

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  About J.N. Chaney

  1

  We plummeted in freefall through a rain of sulfuric acid, buffeted by savage winds. Lightning exploded here and there, flashing behind the yellowish clouds. We didn’t feel a thing. In our mechanized drop-suits, we were as cut off from the surrounding environment as if we were still up on the Sol Federation dropship high above Venus. For me and my partner Gabriel Anderson, descending at unnerving speed toward the surface of a hellish planet was just another day at the office.

  Less than an hour before the drop, we’d been in the briefing room rubbing the sleep out of our eyes. Or maybe that was just me. Gabe had looked well rested and refreshed with his gray goatee all neatly trimmed and combed. When he saw me stumble in with bleary eyes and unshaven cheeks, he shook his head and sighed. I probably looked like I had barely woken up in time for the meeting, and that was more or less true.

  This wasn’t the time to think about that, however. We were about to take the plunge to the surface, and before long we’d have much more immediate concerns than proper decorum.

  “Morning, Tycho,” said Gabriel, standing in the briefing room. His expression, as usual, was just slightly mischievous. In the depths of space, day and night had no meaning. Morning was pretty much whenever you rolled yourself out of your bunk.

  I smiled a little. “If you say so. Did you get any other details about this assignment? I mean, it’s Venus. When was the last time an inner colony needed Arbiter intervention?”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything yet. It’s probably nothing.”

  “They don’t bring us in for nothing,” I reminded him.

  The conversation ended abruptly as Commander Urich entered, frowning slightly at my unkempt appearance. Gabriel would most likely hear about it later, and then I’d get a lecture. Circle of life. As the Senior Arbiter in our drop-team, it was his job to make sure I upheld the standards. Nothing I could do about it now, though.

  The Commander pointed at the wall and the big board lit up, showing an image of the clouds of Venus just below our ship. It was a sobering picture, that swirling mass of sulfur dioxide and acidic rain above a planet hot enough to melt human flesh. I’d done plenty of these combat missions, but it was hard to believe that I'd be out there, in that, in just a few minutes.

  Commander Urich looked directly at us. “Listen up, gentlemen. Insertion will follow directly after this mission briefing. Here’s what we know of the situation.”

  Gabriel frowned. “What we know of it, sir? Are you saying we’re limited on data?”

  The Commander nodded. “That’s right. Intel is sparse on this one. Mission location is Tower 7, population 520,000, approximately.”

  The big board changed, showing an image of the colossal structure that stretched up from the swirling clouds. It was weirdly beautiful, a twisted spiral of gleaming lights that soared to a sharp peak so high in the sky it was almost terrifying. It made me proud to think that we humans had built something like that. Venus was hell, but we’d made a good home here. A civilization.

  Commander Urich continued. “This image is from twelve hours ago. Here’s how it looks right now.”

  The board changed again, and Gabriel’s jaw dropped a little. Mine probably did too. The whole tower was dark, like something you’d see in a nightmare—a black mountain, looming silently over a dead planet. It didn’t look like anything had ever lived there, or ever could.

  Gabriel shook his head. “What happened?”

  Urich’s voice was gruff. “That’s your mission. To find out. That, and to try to get the lights back on before the people inside suffocate. You’ve got 36 hours to get the tower’s systems functioning again, or we’ll have to come back here with a half-million or so body bags. Plus two for you. There’s no extraction here until the mission’s accomplished. Too many lives on the line, too many unknowns.”

  This seemed like a situation for an entire regiment, not a team of two men. We would have everything we needed, and our skills and training were the leading edge, but even so. I stuck my hand up like a schoolchild, and Urich frowned.

  “Yes, Barrett?”

  “Shouldn’t we go in hard, sir? I mean, 520,000 people…”

  He shook his head. “You know the protocol. One crisis, one drop-team. There just aren’t enough Arbiters nearby, and with
thousands of colonies… you know how it is. There’s no point in bitching about it. You’re all we can spare. Blame budget cuts.”

  Ever since the Boson Apertures revolutionized space travel, the Sol Federation had been stretched far too thin. A handful of elite Arbiters were expected to keep seven planets and thousands of colonies from descending into lawless chaos. We were peacekeepers, after all, and our job was to do exactly that. It just wasn’t sustainable, but sticking to the “one crisis, one drop-team” rule in this situation verged on criminal recklessness. Or so it seemed to me.

  Gabriel flashed me a look, a warning that said we aren’t the ones who make these decisions, now shut your mouth.

  So I shut my mouth, and the Commander went back to the mission briefing. “We do have this recording. The man you’re looking at is Nightwatch Commander August Marcenn, top law enforcement officer for Tower 7.”

  The face that appeared on the Board looked almost predatory, like a hungry bird in human form. His hair was white and combed back away from his face. He was dressed impeccably, more like a titan of industry than a chief of police. His eyes were intense, verging on something more than that, something vaguely disturbing.

  The recording seemed to have been pulled from Tower 7’s video feed just before the blackout. Looking directly into the camera, Marcenn smiled just slightly. His voice was cultured yet commanding, although his words were close to meaningless.

  “Fellow citizens,” he began. “We are still hoping to avoid any unnecessary… ugliness. The intrinsic immortality of the men beyond the machine is too strong to withstand alone. We must go together. All of us. To those who have heeded my instructions: stay in your homes. With your cooperation, the distribution can still complete with some degree of dignity. The lights will be going off soon. Take this opportunity to stay close to your loved ones. Accept what you cannot change. It’s the only way.” His eyes got hard, and he bared his teeth in a grimace. “For those who have not heeded my instructions, my androids will find you. And what will happen then will not be dignified at all!”

  The recording ended, freeze-framing on August Marcenn’s grimacing face. He looked even more like a predatory bird, swooping in with beak open.

  “What the hell did he just say?” I asked, glancing at Gabriel. “Intrinsic immortality?”

  Gabriel shrugged and cocked his brow. “It’s nonsense. He’s gone insane, clearly. The top cop in Tower 7 has lost his mind.”

  Commander Urich’s jaw clenched. “You know how I feel about speculation, Anderson. August Marcenn’s mental state is not the issue here. The issue is what he’s doing, and right now we don’t even know what that is. All we can say with any certainty is that he’s become a threat to the colony.” I leaned against the nearby table and let out a long sigh. “Your mission is to secure Tower 7, find out what’s happening, get the lights back on, and bring Marcenn in for questioning. If he resists, you are authorized to use lethal force. Understood?”

  Gabriel stood up a little straighter. “Yes, sir!”

  I echoed his words, wondering how exactly we were going to secure 300 floors swarming with potential hostiles and panicking civilians. Marcenn had control over a small army of androids, which meant we were walking into a potential warzone. One thing at a time, I reminded myself. One thing at a time.

  The Commander turned back to the big board, which was now displaying a detailed schematic. “I’m sending these over to your dataspikes but kindly have a look at them now. You’ll go in where you see the flashing X; there’s an airlock there for the mining robots.”

  “Mining robots?” I asked.

  He nodded. “There are several branching underground mines around the colony. They’re not your concern, however. The lower levels are all support systems and full of industrial machinery, so you’ll have to make your way up to the inhabited levels above the clouds.”

  He filled us in on the details, including the disheartening numbers of Nightwatch officers and combat androids Marcenn had at his disposal. I tried to focus on the intel, but in my mind, I was preparing for a fight. With over half a million civilians in Tower 7, there was a strong chance that we’d find more than a few casualties, and I sure as hell didn’t plan to be one of them.

  I didn’t know August Marcenn, but I did know this much: he had the look of madness in those eyes of his...and I wagered he’d kill every last one of those civilians if he felt the need.

  So there we were, diving straight at the Venusian surface. Our drop-suits were massive, with bulging egg-shaped upper bodies and four mechanized limbs. For as long as we wore them, we’d be all but impervious. Anything that can survive Venus for more than a few minutes had damn well better be.

  Gabe’s voice came over the dataspike. “Oh, hell yes! This never gets old!”

  “Speak for yourself.” I laughed. “When I’m done with the Arbiters, I will not be nostalgic about this experience!”

  “So, why’d you sign up? Come on, Tycho. You love it as much as I do.”

  “I just did it for the uniform. The recruiting officer said something about becoming irresistibly seductive.”

  “Uh-huh. And how has that worked out for you, buddy?”

  “Recruiting officers are lying scum.”

  Outside our drop-suits was a world so extreme the most deranged hellfire-and-brimstone preacher of the pre-spaceflight era would have considered it too unbelievable to be included in his sermon. Inside the suits, it was just Tycho Barrett and Gabriel Anderson, teasing each other to pass the time at work.

  “I don’t know,” said Gabriel. “I do pretty well. It’s just that the uniform’s not quite enough. You have to look good too.”

  I wasn’t willing to buy the idea that he was the handsome one in our little team. I was a lot younger than he was, for one thing. But I had other things to think about. My systems were telling me we were about to break cloud cover.

  Down there on Venus, the air was mostly carbon dioxide and the surface temperature hovered around 467 degrees Celsius. Unless I wanted to become an oddly colored stain on some Venusian rock, I needed to make sure I landed safely in an intact drop-suit.

  Gabe was on top of it, switching to work mode without missing a beat. “Prepare for bloom.”

  “Preparing for bloom,” I repeated.

  We dropped down below the clouds, where drag chutes and helium balloons suddenly deployed from behind our suits to slow our descent. The sudden decrease in velocity pulled me up short, and I grunted from the impact.

  Gabe’s voice came in over my dataspike again. “Deploy polymer blades.”

  “Deploying polymer blades.”

  The blades extended from all four limbs, giving me something to catch onto the tower with. Now for the tricky part.

  “Maneuver in and make contact,” said Gabe. His voice was calm, but he was probably at least a little bit nervous. We had to hit the tower, but not so hard or fast that we damaged either our suits or our bodies. The goal here was a controlled fall, scraping the side of the tower with our polymer blades to latch and dig into the wall. When we slowed to a stop, we should find ourselves at or near the ingress point. At least in theory.

  Conversation stopped, and we concentrated on making our approach as safely as possible. I did have a viewscreen, but the tower was so huge the only thing I could see in front of me was its endless black surface. We were flying blind, relying solely on our internal instruments. I knew where the wall was, but only in an abstract way. It was a red arc on my data display and a string of numbers. If I made an error and bounced off, I’d drop the rest of the way to the surface of the planet and end up a melting puddle in a pressure-crushed heap of metal.

  None of which was likely, because the training they gave the Arbiters was more than enough to handle a combat drop onto a Venusian living tower or anywhere else. It was a tricky maneuver, but we knew what we were doing. A few minutes later, my blades bit into the walls of Tower 7 and I felt myself sliding downward.

  Gabe whooped. “Just l
ike Jack and the Beanstalk!”

  “Jack and the what now?”

  I came to a halt, and my sensors indicated that Gabe was just above me. I was near the ingress point, an airlock used by the sturdy mining robots that worked the surface of the planet gathering raw materials for the humans who lived here. The robot would enter through the airlock with a load of materials and get a thorough wash-down, then the inner door would open, and another robot would offload the cargo. The whole process was automated, so no vulnerable human bodies were ever anywhere near the door that opened on the world outside.

  That was about to change.

  “Descend to the airlock and prepare for breach.”

  “Descending now.”

  I used the polymer blades to climb down the wall, digging a new gouge in the tower’s surface with every step and every movement of my hands. The damage to the tower itself was trivial. The walls were so thick I could have blasted a hole in one with a rocket launcher without endangering anyone inside the structure.

  “I’m at the airlock now.”

  “Override the security system and breach the structure,” he instructed.

  I didn’t need to be told this, but the military Arbiter Force loved its chain of command. It’s good if I do whatever needs to be done, but it’s even better if Gabriel tells me to do it first.